


Avada Kedavra

by xxsnailxx



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Mentions of Suicide, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, it almost ended like the previous one but i managed to turn it around, just the discussion of it as an option really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-11
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-06-08 20:41:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15251634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxsnailxx/pseuds/xxsnailxx
Summary: A strong Witch or Wizard almost always has a soulmark. Still, it is a rare and private enough phenomenon that the concept of Soulmates is rarely spoken about in polite company.A soulmark can take on a variety of shapes — the first words one’s soulmate says to them, a symbol specific to their soulmate, one of their iconic phrases, a symbol that represents their bond, or even their soulmate’s name.There is a problem, however, in that until the younger of the pair is born, the older does not receive their soulmark.





	Avada Kedavra

From as far back as Tom could remember, he was waiting for something. There was a part of him, his subconscious, that knew.

The first time he was almost beaten to death by the older boys in the orphanage, he thought he would die like that, before he could be brilliant. His subconscious told him, _Not yet_.

 _Not yet_ , he had heard again, in an overcrowded bomb shelter on one of the many long nights during the war.

 _Not yet_ , not even when the entire Slytherin House had set lethal traps about his dormitory.

But as time passed, the voice faded.

He discovered his heritage, shot up the ranks among the Slytherins, formed his own group of followers, and the voice faded.

More than once, he sat at the head of the meeting table, and wondered if this was what he had been waiting for. A group to call his own, a devoted pack that would take a thousand crucios for him without complaint, a means to reach his political goals. To have his name go down in history.

The lack of the voice, however, made him feel vulnerable. Without its insistent _Not yet_ , all vaguely dangerous situations felt almost like _It’s time_.

Then he met his boggart.

* * *

On the 31st of July, 1980, Harry James Potter’s arrival to the world of the breathing is met with the scream of his mother and consequential mass panic about the Potter Cottage in Godric’s Hollow; for, written across the infant’s chest in the unmistakable crimson of _His_ eyes, in _His_ perfect handwriting, are two words that would later be recorded as the most iconic soulmark of all time.

_Avada Kedavra_

* * *

Tom stared, wide-eyed, at his own corpse — young and lifeless and drooling. And in his mind, there was silence.

* * *

Harry learns from a young age that the words across his chest mark him as the Devil’s spawn, that they should be concealed from all. It says something about its level of freakishness, that he’s, conversely, never been told specifically to hide the lightning bolt on his forehead.

If the Wizarding World kicks up such a fuss about the lightning bolt, he’s really sure he doesn’t want to know what they’d say about the words.

* * *

The Chamber of Secrets housed a basilisk. It did not strike, did not even open its eyes.

Still, facing the giant of a snake, Tom could hear nothing but the echoing _lack_ of his subconscious’ voice.

 _It’s time,_ the silence seems to say.

Tom would be damned if he let himself die so young.

* * *

The whirlwind of events that sweep Harry up upon starting school at Hogwarts wipes _Avada Kedavra_ cleanly from his thoughts. He doesn’t think to look the words up, doesn’t think twice about concealing the them as washes up every morning. It becomes another thing of the past.

* * *

Myrtle’s death was an accident. Tom takes it as divine guidance; a sign that he should take the next step on his path to immortality.

The Horcrux ritual brought a sense of quiet he did not know he needed, washed away the _longing_ he did not know he still felt.

Yes, this must be what he had been waiting for.

That thought sent another pang of longing, more painful than before, through his chest. Like a warning, almost.

... Perhaps, if he created more…?

* * *

Sirius and Remus had known Harry since he was a baby. They make no mention of the words, and Harry assumes he’d gotten them _after_ his parents were killed. Maybe Voldemort left the words there? He really should look them up.

… When he returns to Hogwarts for fourth year, of course. He wouldn’t know where to start looking, and the library at Hogwarts has a really convenient index enchantment.

* * *

The demise of the Riddle family, was decidedly _not_ an accident. Neither was that of Hepzibah Smith.

Tom found that with every horcrux he made, the pangs of longing became less and less frequent, but grew sharper whenever they did hit him. By the time they had started the Second Wizarding War, they struck him only once a year but resulted always, in agony that would put Bellatrix’s _crucio_ to shame.

No matter, when this war was over, Voldemort would have the time and luxury to look for alternative ways to obtain immortality. The dull ache he used to have was preferable to… this.

* * *

“ _Avada Kedavra_ ,” Moody incants. There’s a flash of green light, and the world freezes around Harry, and the spider dies.

Just like that. Because it’s the killing curse. _Oh._

That explains everything, and nothing at all. Voldemort shot the curse at his forehead, everyone knows that. How could he have a scar on his forehead, and the words across his chest, when Voldemort only cursed him once?

He finds himself in the library, before even registering that the lesson must have ended and that Ron and Hermione are not with him. A quick read on the Killing Curse confirms that the curse never leaves any evidence, except the lack of. His scar is quoted as an exception, but there is no mention of the imprinted words. Funny, because surely Sirius or Hagrid or Dumbledore would have noticed? Now that he thinks about it, Madam Pomfrey must have seen the words by now, too.

He’s had it for as long as he can remember, though, so surely he didn’t get it _after_ that Halloween.

... unless… He couldn’t have been born with it, surely? He remembers reading somewhere that some Wizards are born with a mark somewhere. But surely having the incantation of the _Killing Curse_ of all things imprinted on a newborn child would have wreaked havoc, wartime or not? Merlin, his parents would have been horrified.

Perhaps, he should ask Dumbledore.

* * *

_Born as the seventh month dies_ , the prophecy said. Of course Voldemort’s potential ‘downfall’ would be born about the time his _Pangs_ tended to strike. As he’d thought, they were a warning, after all.

And Voldemort was not foolish enough to ignore it, notwithstanding the _power the Dark Lord knows not_.

* * *

The conversation starts off well enough.

HP: “Professor, would you happen to know the reason I have the incantation of the Killing Curse written in crimson across my chest?”  
AD: *sighs, looking suddenly a decade or ten older* “Harry, my poor, poor boy.”  
HP: “You don’t seem much surprised by it.”

At this juncture, Harry is offered a lemon drop. Actually, he’s offered the entire bowl of it.

AD: “I had hoped, against rationality, that it would not come to this. You see, my boy, that is your soulmark. All powerful Wizards and Witches have one.”  
HP: “Soulmark? Does that mean—”

He cuts himself off, unable to finish that terrifying thought.

AD: “I have one as well, always had. Two of them, actually, for our fates were doubly entwined.”

He lifts his right sleeve, revealing a phrase written in blue: _For the Greater Good._ There’s another symbol beneath his ear, he says, and his soulmate has a matching, though not identical, mark. A pity his beard has grown over it.

AD: “Your own mark seems to have fallen into the ‘first words’ category, but I wouldn’t be so sure…”  
HP: “Yeah, ‘Avada Kedavra’ _does_ seem like a catchphrase of Voldemort’s, doesn’t it? Funny how there were a thousand lethal curses he could use but everyone knows he used _that_ one.”

Dumbledore’s smile does not quite reach his eyes when he agrees.

* * *

On the 31st of July, 1980, the Dark Lord Voldemort collapsed halfway through a verbal report in the Malfoy Manor. His whole body seemed to him, to be burning from the inside, as his magic reached outwards, clawing, scratching, _reaching_.

His fit lasted for all of a minute, and when it ended, he found with him his Diary, and his Ring. He felt a surge of rage, for it seemed like his magic was mocking him, taunting that he had not soul nor strength enough for destroying the _infant_ — as that was what the interrupted report was about; the Longbottom child who was born yesterday.

He had yet to fully collect himself, when Severus Snape arrived. Prostrating himself without a second glance at his Lord’s vulnerable position, Severus whispered, “The Potter child has been born, my Lord, and it seems he has been written already to die. He has the words of the Killing Curse written on his person.”

And Voldemort laughed. How cruel of Fate, to grant the Potters a child, only for him to have his _death_ marked on him.

Yes, he had strength enough for _this_.

* * *

Harry watches with a strange sense of detachment as Wormtail drops a black book, a ring, a tiara and a baby into the cauldron, then begins chanting. Flesh of a servant, bones of the father, blood of an enemy. A flash.

And out steps a man. A waxy-skinned, red-eyed man, but a man nonetheless. He — Voldemort, he must be — seems almost as curious as Harry feels. He spends a long time inspecting his own skin — _He has soulmarks,_ Harry realises with a jolt, though it seems much like one word, scattered. They’re all in emerald; an _x_ here, an _l_ there, an _s_ on a toe — even wandlessly conjures a mirror, before saying to Wormtail, “Robe me.” When his order is complied with as a matter of course, he taps his wand impatiently and says, “Your arm, Wormtail.”

Wormtail whimpers and offers the bleeding stump, which is met with a snort. Voldemort shoots Harry a look that can almost be read as _How is this rat a marked member of the Death Eaters, again?_ Harry jumps — as much as he could, while still being bound to the gravestone — at the startling realisation that he knows Voldemort well enough to project his thoughts, despite never having had a conversation with him.

With a roll of his eyes, Voldemort points his wand at the rat, and says the first magic words Harry learnt. He then proceeds to summon his followers, give a long speech, hand out a few _crucio_ s and challenge Harry to a duel.

It’s only when he recounts what Dumbledore calls the _Priori Incantatem_ that Harry realises what Voldemort’s soulmark says, what his own soulmark represents.

* * *

For the year or so after the birth of the Potter boy, the Death Eaters worked to track down the Potters, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigrew. Then, shortly after his first birthday — on which, Voldemort once again suffered an agonising collapse which he was much better prepared for — the rat appeared before them of his own accord.

He had waited for more than a year at that point, so Voldemort decided he could wait a little more. He would strike on Samhain, when it would be easiest to send a soul to the domain of the dead. There would be no risk of failure.

* * *

Harry finds himself, once more, in the Headmaster’s Office. Except this time, he is much less receptive of Dumbledore’s advice.

HP: “I brought the cup. Broke into Gringotts and all. He’s the only one left.”  
AD: “And yourself, I would imagine.”  
HP: “Yes, but—”  
AD: “Miss Granger might have informed you, one half of a pair cannot survive much beyond the death of the other.”  
HP: “Are you actually suggesting I throw him in prison like you did—”  
AD: “I am not proud, Harry, of what I did.”  
HP: “You shouldn’t be.”

Because the day after Dumbledore fell from the tower, the headlines featured not only Dumbledore’s death, but also Grindelwald’s. His death seemed almost like the work of the Killing Curse, they said.

AD: “I would never suggest you do something so cruel, and I know it is not in your nature. You would go with him, for your soul is pure, and it loves flawlessly.”  
HP: “I didn’t think you, of all people, would condone suicide. Live life to its fullest, and all that.”  
AD: “Death would be preferable, to what I put the two of us through. You would not survive his death, but neither would you live beyond his incarceration. My days after Gellert could hardly be considered ‘living’, and you do love so much more utterly than I.”  
HP: “Is that why you called me here? You ensure I do not show false mercy like you did? You wouldn’t be satisfied until the world is _rid_ of him, would you?”

Harry is being irrationally difficult, but so is the deceased Headmaster. As a matter of fact, Harry is only here because here is where Gryffindor’s sword is, and Snape refused to do him the favour of bringing it to him.

AD: “No, my dear boy. I called you to inform you of the alternative. I assume you have no recollection of The Tale of Three Brothers? Your father used to tell it to you all the time — with variations, of course.”

* * *

“Please, Harry has it on his chest—”

With an annoyed flick of his wand and a murmur, the Dark Lord Voldemort sent Severus’ mudblood through the veil to meet her husband. He stepped, finally, in front of the boy.

Harry James Potter grinned up at him obliviously, the top of his button-up onesie unbuttoned, revealing curling tendrils of crimson across his chest. Voldemort did not stop to inspect it, for he already knew what was written.

” _Avada Kedavra_.”

**Author's Note:**

> Look, no homicide-suicide this time! (In other words, the ending is open because I can't write an ending without either a, everyone dying; or b, it becoming disgustingly sappy.)
> 
>  
> 
> This was mostly done because — CAN WE JUST TALK ABOUT HOW MUCH POTENTIAL SOULMATE!TOMARRYMORT HAS— yea. I fully intend to do this trope a couple more times ~~so feel free to suscribe XD~~
> 
>  
> 
> In case you didn't catch it, Voldemort's soulmark is 'Expelliarmus', except it's scattered and possibly missing a few letters. I do think he might have the sign of the Deathly Hallows somewhere as well. After all, Harry has two marks from Voldemort, and both symbolises death. Since _Harry_ is the MoD, it's only fair that Voldemort gets a Death mark as well.
> 
>  
> 
> Drop me a kudo and a review maybe?


End file.
